Sulfur Could Help Rein In Pollutant

Experts Will Meet This Week In Orlando To Discuss The Effect, Which Has Been Studied In The Everglades.

December 6, 2004|By Kevin Spear, Sentinel Staff Writer

Something has transformed a soggy patch of saw grass deep in the Everglades so dramatically that scientists are hoping it may lead to a remedy for one of the most vexing and dangerous pollutants on the planet.

David Krabbenhoft, a U.S. Geological Survey scientist, will describe during a national environmental-restoration conference in Orlando this week how high levels of a dangerous form of mercury in the Everglades plummeted in a period of five years.

"We can barely see it anymore," said Krabbenhoft, who has studied Everglades mercury contamination for more than a decade.

He and other scientists have zeroed in on how sulfur compounds in runoff from farms near the Everglades can trigger a bacterial reaction that converts mercury in soil and water to a type more easily absorbed by fish and people.

The scientists suspect that because of Everglades restoration work, sulfur compounds dropped in certain areas, leading to the swift, though not well-understood, decline of mercury levels in an area studied by Krabbenhoft.

That research is critical to the Everglades and, arguably, to much of Florida, a state with some of the worst mercury contamination in the country.

According to Ronnie Best, conference chairman and a U.S. Geological Survey scientist in South Florida, findings from research in the Everglades also might help in understanding how to reduce the threat of mercury contamination on a much broader scale.

The weeklong conference, sponsored primarily by the U.S. Geological Survey and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, is the first national gathering of ecosystem-restoration specialists, Best said.

Restoration of entire ecosystems has gained most of its momentum in the past decade and is under way at many of the nation's treasured environments -- from the Everglades to the Chesapeake Bay to San Francisco Bay and in many areas of Florida.

Charles Groat, director of the U.S. Geological Survey in Reston, Va., said ecosystem restoration needs to mature in one particular area.

"Part of the challenge is communication," Groat said, explaining how a bird scientist or a water expert may have difficulty conveying highly specialized findings to managers who oversee everything from budgets to shovel work in restoration projects.

"The scientists haven't been really good at making the managers understand how it works," Groat said.

The conference will have about 500 presenters and another 500 restoration experts in attendance.